Forgetfulness

                                                                                                                        September 9, 1993

                                                                                                                        Daniel J. Travanti

            There is this habit of forgetfulness going around. Some have just discovered that children in the kitchen with their moms can be enjoyable and edifying. To advertisers.

            Take your kids along. Let them help you with “food preparation”. FOOD PREPERATION? We mean cooking, don’t we? Baking, making a casserole, salad, sandwich? Is this new? Were children not always in the kitchen; helping grandma and mommy, fooling around with big or little sister, even in Caesar’s Rome? Have not tribal mothers, village wives, single aunts, and fathers always taken along their children to hunt, garden, and forage for food? We forget. We don’t learn.

            We don’t learn, that’s the problem. We learn that meat is harmful to your health. We announce that heart disease is still the number one killer: up to forty-five percept of all deaths are caused by it. We hear that salt is not salubrious. We are told by study groups that sugar is not nutritious; that it damages blood vessels and body tissues in general. We “learn” these things. But we don’t. the people who announced the facts may have learned them. We haven’t.

            We don’t believe them, I supposed. We don’t get it. We won’t.

            Not only are we unwilling to change, we are unwilling to see that we forget. We knew once that grandparents and grandchildren belong together. We once knew that mothers belonged in the kitchen with their children, in their bedrooms, too, and in their laps. That mothers, grandfathers, and little boys and girls enjoyed being together. We don’t remember.

            So we send away grandma and grandpa, early. We feed our children sugar, meat, and salt—lots of it—and we discover that taking our children into our kitchens to help can be fun. Taking our children along. We have taken wrong roads for so long, we can only mislead. We have forgotten so much, that we can only misinform. It may not be too late.

            Grammar is good. It helps. Clear speech is good. It helps to communicate. Exercise is not vain; it helps us to move, stand, sit, and think. Nutritious food is not exotic, it’s the best fuel. It’s not dull, it’s tastier than bad food and more interesting. Conserving water is not an imposition, it’s necessary to our survival; so is recycling. Composting is recommended, too, for everyone’s sake. Reading good books strengthens the mind; the spirit too. Savoring beauty can be entertaining as well as edifying. Eating flesh is dangerous to our health. Eating fiber is not.

            Pantries big enough to walk into are good. Electric cars are better. Solar cars are best. Front porches are fine. Garages should be hidden. In the best of all possible worlds, they ought to be unnecessary. Shrubs are good. Trees are better. Classical music is not strange and difficult to appreciate. Rock and roll is okay. Bach, Beethoven, Verdi, Benny Goodman, and Ray Charles make it better. None is difficult to “understand.”

            May we remember. May we learn, relearn, keep learning all the time. May we regard our lives as complete enterprises, requiring maintenance of mind, body, spirit, and surroundings. May we take responsibility for our own lives. May we pass it on.